Bill Slawski covered a recently awarded patent from Google written by April R. Lehman and the famous Navneet Panda (from the Panda algorithm) named Site quality score.

The patent was filed back in 2012 but was just recently awarded to Google. So it may be currently baked into the algorithm or it may not be used at all. 🙂

But check it out:

I am no PhD but it seems like the more a searcher specifically searches for a specific site with a query, maybe using a site command or site name in the query, with a keyword, the more Google may trust that site as a quality site on that topic? Of course, this is easily spammable, so I doubt it is that simple or even if it is used but if you dig into the patent, it shows you how Navneet Panda thinks about quality, which is what the Panda algorithm is all about.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.